The Stanford Professor Who Resigned to Teach for Free

Most educators dream of the opportunity to teach at an elite university, but after teaching one free online course for Stanford with 160,000 students, Sebastian Thrun realized the prestige just wasn't that important after all. Instead, he wants to teach the world for free.

That's why Thrun resigned and started up his own free, online education center called Udacity. And it's not just the students who are benefiting — the professor says he finds open education to be addictive:

"Now that I saw the true power of education, there is no turning back. It’s like a drug. I won’t be able to teach 200 students again, in a conventional classroom setting."

So far Udacity is only offering two courses: one entry-level class in building a search engine and one advanced course in programing a robotic car. But eight more are on the table for later this year.

Though it has yet to even open in U.S. theaters, box office analysts are already predicting that Black Panther is going to devour President's Day weekend, with an anticipated $170 million in ticket sales on the line.While it’s still got a ways to go to make the more than $1.51 billion that the original The Avengers film earned in 2012, this latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will only ensure the franchise's dominance of Hollywood's pockets well into 2018 and beyond. Here are the 10 highest grossing movie franchises of all time, based on worldwide box office.

1. MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

Worldwide Gross: $13,508,505,227

Though it seems a bit unfair, the whole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—including The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, and Guardians of the Galaxy movies—is officially a single franchise in Hollywood's eyes. Which makes it a tough one to beat, with 18 (and counting) films in the past 10 years, led (financially-speaking) by The Avengers ($1,519,479,547), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1,408,218,722), and Captain America: Civil War ($1,153,304,495).

2. STAR WARS

Jonathan Olley, Lucasfilm

Worldwide Gross: $8,926,689,927

Though it's been more than 40 years since the original Star Warsfilm hit theaters and entranced moviegoers, since Disney purchased the franchise in 2012, they've been making up for lost time with new entries in the original space opera, plus a bunch of standalone series—including a recently announced new one courtesy of Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. While it may take the Mouse House a couple of years to match Marvel's quantity of films, at the rate they're cranking them out, we probably won't have too long to wait.

3. HARRY POTTER

Worldwide Gross: $8,532,684,345

The big-screen incarnation of J. K. Rowling’s boy wizard has proven to be just as profitable as the book version. Since 2001, nine movie adaptations have been released, beginning with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. While nearly all of them—including 2016's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them—have approached the $1 billion mark, 2011's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II brought in the biggest profit, with a worldwide take of $1,341,511,219. With two more Fantastic Beasts movies on the way in the next two years, this box office behemoth shows no signs of slowing down.

4. JAMES BOND

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions

Worldwide Gross: $7,077,929,291

While "Who will play the next James Bond?" is a question as old as this movie franchise itself, one thing that's never in question is 007's ability to attract an audience—and he only seems to be getting better with age. Bond's Daniel Craig era has seen some of its most critically acclaimed, and profitable, entries in the series, which kicked off in 1963 with Dr. No. But the franchise’s high position on this list is largely thanks to 2012’s Skyfall, which earned $1,110,526,981 around the world.

5. THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Worldwide Gross: $5,895,804,182

First, it’s important to note that Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth franchise includes not just The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but all three of The Hobbit movies as well. While the former series might be the more critically acclaimed of the two, when all is said and done, both series contributed to the franchise’s position here: Among the six films, 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1,141,403,341) and 2012’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($1,017,003,568) are the two biggest moneymakers.

6. FAST AND THE FURIOUS

Worldwide Gross: $5,139,434,105

It’s possible that even the producers of the Fast and the Furious series themselves are a little surprised by just how popular the franchise has become, with eight adrenaline-fueled films that seem to grow more popular with each entry. While the first film in the series, 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, made a respectable $206,512,310, 2017's The Fate of the Furious made nearly six times that amount—a grand total of $1,237,466,026. So it should come as no surprise that two more are already in the works.

7. X-MEN

Though the X-Men are a Marvel creation, they're treated as their very own (mutant) entity in the box office world. Which is particularly impressive when you consider that the franchise's 10 films (and counting) have generated enough dough on their own to compete at the same level as their cinematic parent. While 2017's Logan made an impressive $615,577,068 at the box office—and managed to be that rare comic book movie that scored an Oscar nomination for its script—it's Ryan Reynolds's Deadpoolthat's leading this series in box office dollars, with a worldwide gross of $801,029,249 on the first movie. Given the excitement that's already surrounding this May's sequel, expect that number to climb even higher.

8. SPIDER-MAN

Worldwide Gross: $4,858,770,389

Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man kicked off a new era in comic book moviemaking with its audience-friendly mix of action, humor, and just a little camp. His final film for the series, Spider-Man 3, earned the most money of the bunch, with a box office total of $894,860,230. Two reboots later, audiences don't seem to be tiring of the ever-changing web-slinger; 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming took in a not-too-shabby $880,206,511 (and a sequel is already in production for 2019).

9. BATMAN

Though the final tally above represents more than a quarter-century of Batman movies—going back to Tim Burton and Michael Keaton’s 1989 original and spanning the less memorable Val Kilmer and George Clooney years—the real earnings in this franchise have come from Christopher Nolan’s reboots. In fact, 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises earned $1,084,439,099 on its own, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the franchise's entire haul. And in case you're wondering: yes, 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is officially part of the franchise.

10. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

Worldwide Gross: $4,505,013,091

First it was a Disney theme park ride, then it was a box office smash success and one of the few times that Johnny Depp agreed to make a truly “commercial” film. But over the course of nearly 15 years, from 2003 to 2017, the swashbuckling series has managed to plunder more than $4.5 billion in ticket sales—even if its most recent entry, 2017's Dead Man Tell No Tales, was one of its least impressive earners with (a still-impressive) $794,758,876.

An athlete can train for his or her entire life for an opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games, but victory is never assured. The only guarantee? If you do win, your state government is going to want a piece of the action.

In the United States, medal winners are no different from lotto prize recipients or someone who hits a jackpot in Vegas. The prize is considered income, and income gets taxed. The federal government used to take a chunk of the cash, up until President Barack Obama abolished the so-called "victory tax" in 2016. That leaves only state taxes.

But it’s not really the actual medal that has to be reported—it’s the money awarded by the United States Olympic Committee.

In recognition of representing the United States with a victory, the USOC gifts gold medalists with $37,500; $22,500 for silver; and $15,000 for bronze. That’s the amount that gets earmarked for review as income, with the rate depending on the sum of the athlete’s total earnings.

A good accountant can probably find a way to deduct training expenses, reducing an athlete’s net income. On a state by state basis, athletes might also benefit from politicians lobbying to strike the winnings from being tax-eligible. In Pennsylvania, for example, Rep. Marty Flynn (D) has introduced a bill excluding Olympians and Paralympic athletes from taxation. Until then, anyone from PA who takes home gold will have to set aside about $1100 for the state.

It could be worse. For the 2016 Summer Games, Britain—which placed second in the number of medals won overall—didn't pay its athletes a cent.